Mike Trout is on the verge of bumping Vida Blue from the record books as the youngest MVP in baseball history. Trout leads the AL in batting, runs scored and WAR. He’s 20 years old. (And congrats to the 24 teams who took players before Trout in the 2009 MLB draft, well done! Ok, we’ll forgive the Nationals who took Stephen Strasburg, and I guess we can forgive the Angels, who took another high school outfielder the pick before taking Trout.)
Bryce Harper, he of the SI cover at 16 years old, the youngest to ever play in the All-Star game, the hitter of Ruthian batting practice home runs, is just 19. He is also the orator of the most viral locker room clip of 2012.
Baseball may have never seen the arrival of two such precocious stars in the same summer before. Are they both bound for superstardom? Of course not. Baseball, more than any other major sport, has seen meteors flash across it’s sky only to flame out. For every Derek Jeter and Chipper Jones there are dozens of Joe Charboneau’s, Mark Fydrich’s and B.J. Upton’s (too soon?).
However, there have been very few meteors that have shown as brightly as Trout and Harper at such a young age. Baseball is just too hard. Trout and Harper’s teammates in the 2017 All-Star game are currently toiling under the sun in places like Hagerstown and Modesto.
There have indeed been others though, who made it this far, this fast. Of those, none has a more heartbreaking story than Tony Conigliaro, the home town hero who was to be the second coming of Ted Williams in Boston. Signed by the Red Sox at just 17 years old and just out of high school in nearby Revere MA, Conigliaro tore through the New York Penn League as an 18 year old, batting .363 with 24 home runs.
No more learning was necessary and it was off to the show for the 19 year old Tony C in 1964. The hometown kid didn’t disappoint, batting .290 with 24 dingers in just over 100 games before being sidelined with an injury. Year two was even better as the 20 year old became the youngest player to ever lead the league in homers, with 32. Pop culture may not have been as all consuming in 1965 as it is now, but that didn’t stop the good looking, charismatic Conigliaro from singing his pop hit on the Merv Griffin show.
It seemed nothing was going to stop Tony Conigliaro from becoming one of the game’s all time greats. But then…. 45 years ago today, August 18, 1967, Tony C was hit just under his left eye by a fastball from Angels pitcher Jack Hamilton and carried from the field on a stretcher. The fractured cheekbone and broken jaw were nothing compared to the damage done to his left retina.
Conigliaro would improbably enjoy more successful days in the major leagues, hitting career highs in 1970 with 36 HRs and 116 RBI. What he never became was the next Ted Williams. It was a career that started with infinite possibility that was derailed by a devastating injury. When his baseball career was cut short, Conigliaro became a sports anchor in San Francisco and was on his way to interview for a job back home in Boston when he suffered a heart attack. He went into a coma a few days later after having a stroke and lived the last eight years of his life in a vegetative state.
The great Tony Conigliaro, everything that was young, indestructible and living out the American dream, died at just 45 years old.
Enjoy Trout and Harper and wish them the best. Tomorrow never knows.
–Bill Hubbell